WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - In a court declaration filed on Thursday, a 17-year-old pregnant illegal immigrant is accusing the federal government of denying her abortion access.
The teenaged girl is in U.S. federal custody for entering the country illegally. She claims the Trump administration is thwarting her plans to go to an abortion mill.
The left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is representing the girl in court.
The past three undocumented teens who went to court over abortion access did so in October through December 2017. They all won their respective cases, and presumably had their unborn children killed at abortion mills afterwards. (In one case, the teenager's abortion was confirmed by reporters.)
The immigrant girl who filed the suit in Washington, D.C. on Thursday is being referred to as "Jane Moe" by some.
The first case like this was in October last year, and it involved a Jane Doe (anonymous female) who was 17 years old. She had entered the country illegally and was in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in a housing facility for minors near Houston, Texas.
The teenage girl wanted to leave the ORR facilities to get an abortion at a nearby Planned Parenthood, but government employees allegedly thwarted her plans. The ACLU represented Jane Doe in the case. The girl won the case and got her abortion on the morning of October 25. The ACLU celebrated the abortion on Twitter, "Justice prevailed today for Jane Doe. She was able to get an abortion early this morning."
News outlet Politico noted at the time that the Trump administration's initial refusal to offer abortion differs from the policy under Obama.
Former Obama-era ORR Director Robert Carey told Politico that he had frequently signed off on taxpayer funding for abortions for underaged immigrants — provided the pregnancy was a result of a rape or incest or involved medical complications that supposedly endangered the mother's life.
Current ORR director Scott Lloyd is pro-life and was seemingly responsible for this shift in policy at the ORR.
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